Breeze Airways is now hiring part-time flight attendants, and this is arguably the least controversial hiring practice we’ve seen from the airline.
For those of you not familiar with Breeze, this US airline startup is expected to launch in the spring, and it’s founded by David Neeleman, the same guy who started JetBlue.
Breeze’s controversial hiring up until now
Breeze Airways’ hiring practices up until this point have been rather questionable.
Breeze has hired flight attendants in an unconventional way, requiring them to enroll in online university and live in company housing. In other words, the airline was excluding anyone with a college degree and anyone with a family, and was also putting the burden of paying tuition upfront on the newly hired employees.
On the one hand, I suppose this is a nice way to give some people an opportunity to get a job and an education. On the other hand, it seemed like the motivation was to make this a temporary job rather than a career, and to exclude people with families, a college degree, etc.
Breeze Airways’ approach to hiring pilots is controversial as well, as the airline is essentially offering regional jet pilot pay, with significantly higher requirements. People disagree about whether that’s just smart business given the current situation, or whether the airline is trying to take advantage of pilots down on their luck.
Breeze Airways now hiring part-time flight attendants
Breeze Airways is now for the first time hiring flight attendants under a contract that doesn’t require university enrollment. Instead Breeze is now hiring part-time flight attendants:
- Breeze is looking to hire people who live in the Southeastern United States
- Breeze will hire flight attendants under a four year contract, and they’ll be paid a cash payout at the end of the four year agreement
- Part-time flight attendants will work a minimum of eight days per month (or 40 hours of flying time), and a maximum of 12 days per month (or 60 hours of flying time); as a point of comparison, typically (pre-pandemic) flight attendants work closer to 100 hours per month, or in some cases even more
Candidates need to be 20 years of age or older, and must have a high school diploma.
This seems like a fair concept… I think?
On the surface I think this concept from Breeze is smart and reasonable:
- It’s interesting that Breeze is looking specifically for flight attendants based in the Southeastern United States, clearly suggesting the airline will have a focus there with its route network
- The concept of flight attendants working part-time in the next few years seems reasonable in order to manage expectations, given the current state of the industry; I hope that’s the motive here, rather than this just being an attempt to lower costs by not providing health insurance, avoiding unionization, etc.
- This might be a cool gig for someone who has wants to become a flight attendant, but doesn’t want to work full-time; at the same time, I imagine schedules will be rather inconsistent, and I can’t imagine this offers all that much flexibility for someone who has a life outside of their job
Bottom line
In addition to hiring flight attendants who must enroll in an online university, Breeze is now also hiring part-time flight attendants to be based in the Southeastern United States.
Given the current state of the airline industry, it seems reasonable enough for the airline to want to hire part-time employees. While a lot of flight attendants at other US airlines are basically working part-time hours due to the pandemic, as far as I know this is the first time (at least in recent memory) that we’ve seen an airline explicitly make a flight attendant position part-time.
What do you make of Breeze hiring part-time flight attendants?
(Tip of the hat to Jamie)
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